As the invitations for the autumn celebrity cook book launches pile up - the latest is Tamasin Day-Lewis's Supper for a Song - you realise that the publishing world has cottoned onto the fact that people are finding it tougher to feed themselves in their usual manner. Clever! "In tough times we still always crave good food, even if we have to cut down (or give up) eating out ... " runs the blurb for Tamasin (sister of Daniel).

I can't help wondering about the people who are having to give up eating entirely. Any top tips for them? Their numbers are up more sharply than those of British shoppers forced by the recession to slum it at Lidl. For the first time over a billion people, according to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation, are chronically hungry. Nearly half of them are children.

Climate change and the renewed rise in the price of staple food commodities now ensure that more people than ever before in history are going to bed hungry. There's a good analysis in the Economist of what is happening, and what the future holds. Part of the problem, of course, is that we're still turning poor people's cereals into ethanol for our green cars. Here's me banging on about the effect of this in Cambodia for OFM last year.

It is the height of the cyclical famine season in east Africa - but, as the Guardian reported yesterday, the financial crisis means that rich countries are cutting their aid budgets. The shortfall means that emergency feeding programmes in Uganda, Somalia and Kenya may soon have to stop. The money missing amounts to $4.8 billion - easy to find for a bank that's got itself in a mess, but not for millions of people in east Africa.

Still reading? If you are, you may be wondering what we can do, The most food-head-friendly aid agency working on global famine is Action Against Hunger - who have teamed up with Carluccio's, Oliver Rowe, Fergus Henderson, Giorgio Locatelli and Michel Roux to help you feel a little less guilty while you guzzle courtesy of their pleasingly counterintuitive Fight Hunger, Eat Out scheme. So - eat, drink and be generous. A song for these hungry times.